DM -Italy erases names of gay mothers from birth certs

[DustyLee123]

Can’t do links. Story about removing one mother from the certs where there’s two female names .

There is an issue for sperm donation for fathers. That’s something that takes some thinking through.

Why does it take any more thinking than the Italian situation? It's identical - a non-related spouse gets automatic recognition in a situation where the mother has used donated sperm. Why would it be different for men?

This is the thing - gamete donation seems like such a ‘small thing’ doesn’t it? But it has huge consequences. I don’t think we as a society have properly thought it through.

Progress has been pushed by people desperate to have children and clinics happy to exploit that desperation.

The system needs changing as soon as changes are made in technology, doesn't it?

I saw an interview last week where a man found out in his 50s that he has 600+ siblings because the man running the clinic that helped his parents to conceive, substituted his sperm for his father's.

As soon as the technology changes the official documentation needs to follow.

I am not really focussing on the Italian situation in this or specifically thinking about lesbians. In Italy I believe it should be legal for the lesbian partner to apply for parental responsibility. That’s what needs to change.

With regard to sperm donation where the father on the birth certificate is not the biological father I would imagine it would be easy for the registering couple to simply not disclose it, so even if the Italians wanted to strip non-biological fathers from birth certificates, they wouldn’t have any way of knowing. Whereas if the wording ‘second parent’ is used instead of ‘father’ it would be easy to search for in a database.

But what you said was:

It should be a matter of course that non-related individuals who want legal parental responsibility go through the same process

Surely that absolutely covers the husband where sperm donation has been used.

Why though? For what benefit? You just keep stating you don’t think it (female partners being registered as parents on the BC) should happen, but don’t seem to have any reasons, even though there are clear benefits to the child and birth mother. So who exactly benefits from this?

That is not true. The origins of the word mother relate to ‘womb’.

Separating genes out, splicing the meaning of mother to mean ‘provider of gametes’, ignores the essential function and pretty much the definition of motherhood- to gestate and give birth to live young. There is no male equivalent, but that doesn’t mean that it is vitally important.

Doesn’t mean that it is NOT

I think it’s becoming obvious that some people just object to two women being on the birth certificate in any capacity.

What benefits are these? Control of the narrative? Falsification? Convenience?

Whats so bad about having legal parental responsibility but not being named as a parent on the birth certificate? What real harms are there? Why is this so bad?

It’s all been pointed out previously on the thread.

I did not know that Italy had a different way of recording births.
My view is that a birth certificate should record the names of the biological parents ie mother and father - it has to be a male and female - although it might well just record the mother's name as this is also the case and has been over the centuries. Two female's cannot produce a child.
The family unit is different and not the same as the birth. I therefore agree with this latest action in Italy.

Elsiebear I agree with you and I found it quite upsetting to see this on a Feminism and Women’s Rights board. But here we are.

As I’ve already explained, but I will explain it again for you.

Say a woman and her wife decide to have baby, she conceives through donor sperm then her wife decides she doesn’t want to be with her anymore, how does the pregnant woman get any financial support from her wife for the child they decided to create if her wife then refuses to adopt the child? What if the birth mother dies during labour? Who is the legal guardian of the child that is born? What if the woman is pregnant with her wife’s egg then decides she doesn’t want to be with her wife any more? How does the biological mother of the child adopt a child if she has no legal rights to the child and the birth mother refuses the adoption?

You also have not answered the question, what is the benefit to making the wife adopt the child after the birth? The current situation in the Uk is that anyone married to the birth mother automatically has legal parental status of the child, you seek to remove this right, for what benefit?

I agree, it’s sad that some women on a feminist are in favour of removing rights from other women and support a clearly homophobic law.

I don't agree with the view that this step is anti female - if we apply the same to two male partners I would say the same, biologically there needs to be a male and a female to create a baby.

I think a child has an fundamental right to a birth certificate that is factual and follows the biology.

I am taking a slightly more optimistic view that some people on here were unaware of the existing status of spouses in doner situations and thought (weirdly, admittedly) that lesbians had been given special extra rights to be on birth certificates.

If people are fine with non-genetically related husbands being listed but not OK with non-genetically related wives then that really can only be because they are against same sex couples having children.

@Coconaut
I did not know that non-genetically related husbands could be listed - I do not agree with that either. I think that the birth certificate should be a matter of biology only and a child/adult has the right for a certificate that details this.

It really hasn’t.

Father = provider of small gametes.
Mother= provider of large gametes + possessor of the womb within which the baby gestates, and the body which supplies the stable conditions and necessary nutrients to grow to eventually be born from.

You can’t take that essential function away from motherhood even though there’s no equivalent for men. It’s part of being a mammal -the centrality of the mother’s body in bringing young into existence.

Although the language has changed to call surrogate mothers just ‘surrogates’ now, in order to downplay its importance, for the comfort and convenience of those who want to separate the mother and baby dyad and pay to play mum with a human toy. From the baby’s perspective, the mother is the one it grew inside. For the purposes of registering births, the mother is the one who gave birth to the baby.

Don't be so ridiculous.

If there is a potential for the two parents to be different to the two genetic donors then that absolutely should be recorded, it doesn't matter what sex the two parents are. But the documentation hasn't caught up yet.

Hows about trying to campaign for a factual birth record to be updated to reflect modern medical society instead?

Maybe you should read the thread or do some research, two women are not registered as the mother, there is one mother (the woman who gave birth) and one legal parent, there is not incorrect or fictitious about it, it removes the need for adoption of the child for married couples which would result in the same outcome.

I don’t think medical science will get there. I think it is more likely that babies will be fully gestated in incubators than trying to fit such a device inside a man’s body.